


Shut Him Up, Shut Him Down

by asimplewalk



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Mild Language, Sexual Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 12:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5291039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asimplewalk/pseuds/asimplewalk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy is aware of her good looks, even under her comfortable clothes. She's been dealing with miserable fuckboys since puberty started. But that doesn't mean she suffers them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shut Him Up, Shut Him Down

**Author's Note:**

> I can't not ship? Alpha'd by a friend, Beta'd by another. Any other mistakes and plot mine, recognizable assets belong to their rightful license/rights holders.

“Hey, smile. You’re too sweet to look that sour.”

Normally, Darcy Lewis wasn’t particularly bothered by skeevy dudes. This one really wasn’t an exception, and she had no issue or inability to shut him down. It’s just that she was in a professional setting, so, outside men that fell from the sky and got run over by her or her boss, she tried not to flirt with. Or, do the whole kissing people when lives had been saved from space elves wielding deadly red smoke that had possessed her bestie-

As such, Darcy was above this piece of genetic litter. “If I let you play 21 questions, will you stand…” she started, pausing to consider a place that would be out of her, Jane, Erik, and Ian’s way, but close enough that he wasn’t say, in the next county. This soggy paper towel of a human being was one of the new Avengers-Initiative-member-approved guards for Jane, Erik, and crew as they did space-physics sciencing out in the wild (which, despite their indoor tendencies of late, was where Jane and Erik were naturally in their element). “Oh, right about here?” She took a few steps out of the way and drew an ‘X’ in the air, on the x axis of her mind’s eye.

“Works for me, sweetcheeks.” The miserable garbage bag moved over, standing stiff as a board, and Darcy grinned over at the vans parked conveniently nearby, and winked. She’d heard the thump of Thor’s landing a while ago, and had figured that he was just sort of listening in because he always had fun hearing how she dealt with things like this.

“Alright, go.” Darcy casually leaned over the table, with its three laptops spread wide, carefully taking in the readings, writing notes on one of the two tablets glowing on the lowest brightness. 

“So, when did you start wearing lipstick?” Seemed like a tame enough question, but her spine itched with unspoken implications. 

“I was, what, twelve? My mom smacked me for it so hard I thought it would fly off.” She answered absentmindedly, keeping her focus on the numbers coming in from the programs, fingers flying over a keyboard’s number pad, working in a spreadsheet on one of the tablets (and enjoying the satisfying clicking sounds).

“You ever get smacked around by anyone that isn’t your mother?” The ability that these kinds of boys had for packing a leer into their voices when they spoke was phenomenal. 

“Yeah, a boyfriend. It was the first time I ever tazed anyone. Most recent, outside of the Norse deity of thunder, strength and,” Ok, so sue her, but she was actually really good at guiding the questions to get the game ended as fast as possible. “you know, he’s the god of fertility. Hey, Jane, are you pregnant?” She yelled the last bit, and even Ian seemed unaffected by the weird way they all interacted now. Nothing was sacred. Darcy could hear the faint sound of another set of boots near Thor’s.

“No, you already know my body is currently nuking itself. Pen please.” Jane replied, completely unfazed. Darcy tossed her one, not even looking up. The scientist caught it without a glance, and she heard the quiet wheeze of a choked-off laugh by the vans.

“Fertility, huh? No, I didn’t know that. You ever wanted kids?” That sounded like an almost not-lecherous question. She didn’t believe there wasn’t innuendo behind it.

“Want kids, won’t be having them.” She wasn’t going to like giving the next answer she was expecting, but she grit her teeth for the dirtbag to ask anyway.

“Oh that’s a load of shit, you either can’t have them or don’t want them.” Oh, she wanted to stomp on his nuts for that one. Asshole. “So, what, can you?”

“Does the sun set in the west?” She straightened up and quickly flipped her hair up into a messy bun.

“No need to be snippy. Shit. I know girls are supposed to sync up but that’s like- I didn’t know that was true.” He looked like he really, honestly thought women were just there to look pretty. Oh, she felt so sorry for him. “So, you must enjoy the perks of that, huh?”

Ah, this was one of her favorites. She was going to get put down either way. “Well sure, after I’ve been with the guy for a while.”

“How long is a while?” Oh, he was trying so hard to pretend to be okay with that answer.

“Oh, upwards of a year. And even then, it’s not like, lay in bed all day or anything. And I’m not a broom-closet type, either.” She popped her neck and checked her phone. Steve Rogers was standing behind Thor in the picture, both just illuminated in the lights clipped to the frame of the picnic tent where she was working.

“Wow, you’re a fucking prude. Makes sense, with the frumpy sweaters and the librarian glasses and shit. So what, you ever dress up for those guys?” Oh, he wasn’t going to quit after that one, wow.

“No. Wear their shirts and sweaters and steal sweatpants to lounge in, sure.” Well, if he wanted to keep going, she’d just keep dragging him around. She’d waitressed and bartended and barista’d for years. She could handle this sadsack.

“You ever wear their boxers?” From the corner of her eye, she saw him grinning, like he had found the heart of the matter.

“I think I still have a pair of my last ex’s? The green plaid o- no. No I had to burn those and drop them off a balcony.” That was a pretty fun story she liked to tell at little gal-palling adventures. Jane giggled as she was bent over some calculations at her own work station.

“Oh, shit, you’re not one of those crazy bitches like my girlfriend, are you?” Oh, that poor girl. Darcy was positive he’d probably told her that she wasn’t like other girls, and that he would never cheat and all that other shit. “Damn girl. You didn’t like, drop them on him, did you?”

“No, to both.” She said it in the flattest, most bored tone she could.

“Oh come on, sweetheart, those don’t count, how many questions have I even asked?” He had reached the piss-baby whining stage already. That was a new record. 

“You have ten more.” Darcy tapped back and forth between a picture of several previous readings that they had had on one of the tablets, to check and make sure that the spike wasn’t something she should yell at the others for. 

“Oh, okay, you’re playing hard to get. So, you seem like you’re not too much of a fuckin’ prude, the way you’re answering, though. So you ever get off with any of those tiny pricks?” Now she knew he was a small-to-average white-boy down there the way most of her exes weren’t.

“Blew a dude once. And my first roomie and I fooled around a bit?” She shrugged that thought off. It had involved a tentacle-shaped dildo, a whole bottle of lube, two vibrators, a strappy harness for said dildo, and a lot of strange looks from other people in their building in the weeks afterward. And for the two to occasionally send the other eldritch abomination jokes.

Her phone vibrated again and when she checked, there was a picture of Steve’s hair, barely visible over Thor’s shoulder, and the other three guards. She screen-capped the snapchat, and fought off the smile that was threatening to take up her whole face. Oh, she wondered if the guy would be fired for being so far from able to pay attention. Now that she knew what the vague wheezing pop that she had heard was- presumably Rogers’ laughter. The guard was supposed to investigate that sort of thing, not hit on people.

“So, what, you’ve never gotten it in?” She kinda wanted to rub her face, but that would have sent up a flag of some sort in his head. And there wasn’t a way that would be good for her. So she snorted a bit and rolled up onto the toes of her boots, using her fists as a counter-balance, to pop all her knuckles and her toes at once. 

“Nah. Haven’t really wanted to with anyone yet.” That was actually a lie, but like hell she was going to admit finding her friend (who was with in a romantic and sexual way another friend) and several of his friends and co-workers or whatever, immensely hot. She wouldn’t mind several of them. And, of course, the fact that she wasn’t a virgin. “Also, that whole virginity thing is a completely temporal farce that a patriarchal society developed to sustain the overblown importance that ‘men’, and I hate using that descriptor so loosely here, have filled themselves up with. Game over honey.” She turned and smiled at where Thor and his buddy and the other guards were. “Come into the light, my sweet children, and experience an important lesson with your fuckboy.”

The poor guy looked ready to argue her and she snapped her fingers as her arm whipped up to point at him, still looking at where five men emerged from the parked vans. “You shut your mouth right now, trashlord. Y’all gon’ get your learn on, today.” When she even had the attention of the scientists, she finally grinned, big and cold and vicious, teeth bared. She’d been a cheerleader, and had grown up hunting with her cop daddy and the total alpha-mom that gave birth to her. She knew how to look like a feral predator, how to make boys feel like nothing.

“Alright, school’s in, children. Girls aren’t here to please you, to look pretty like a shiny trophy, or to serve you. Women even less so. Vikings let their women fight, divorce, rule, so did Egyptians and Spartans. You know who didn’t? Romans. You know why? They were busy in the middle of a circle jerk. Now, as you all probably noticed, I’m a woman. A _nice_ one.” The cold grimace on the poor guy’s face even as he eyed her rack was telling her what she needed to know.

“Do you know what that also makes me? A human being. With rights, and one of them, in the workplace, is to, y’know, work. I may make the same as other people in my position, but that’s just because of the open minded bosses I’ve been blessed enough to have. Most people that identify female make 76 cents to an identified male. I say most, but that’s not the whole truth, because that’s a pretty race, orientation, and identity driven numbers game. I can rattle some more off. No?” Eyes were glazing over in the guards, and Ian looked ready to start nervously laughing.

“So, what’s your middle name, sweetie?” She used a syrupy voice that was perfected in a gymnasium while she had started cheer. 

“Austin.” He looked a little confused. Good. That would help later. God, they were all so easy.

“Alright, you useless squirrel shit. Now, round two, you didn’t notice a large object falling out of the sky, five grown men hushing each other and giggling under their breath, failed to maintain your patrol in an effort to- what exactly? Slay puss? To gain another notch on your headboard? Cheat on a girl that deserves better than a pathetic, self-serving, personality-type-fedora-neckbeard knucklebaby? Honestly, we’re, depending on the creation theory, two to maybe fifteen thousand years into the perfection of our race? So, what, you can’t act like that though? I’m sad your mother didn’t decide to swallow that night, and instead decided to let your sire produce an heir such a waste to the genepool that I am almost sad eugenics isn’t an option. Almost.” She planted her hands on her hips, smiled bright and sweet.

“So that’s an abandonment of post, sexual harassment, negligence, and reckless endangerment. I am debating on pressing charges. But here’s the thing.” She looks from the terrified looking idiot, who suddenly has the slightest twinkle of hope in his eyes to the man that technically headed the whole Initiative now. She quirked an eyebrow and mouthed ‘zap or no.’

When she got the slightest inclination of a chin, she grinned, slow and sharp; she had permission to taze the little shit if she wanted to. The first time Jane had seen that smile, she had said Darcy had looked ready to devour the man on the other end. “Jared Austin.” She snapped the name, cold, loud, clear, and with all the solid authority of a death knell. The hard flinch the poor bastard reacted with was priceless. “You aren’t even worth a charge of my taser.”

She turned and looked at the numbers, scrolling back in the logs to catch up. When everything remained silent around her, she held on to her focus, but snorted. “What, you all have jobs, do them. We have two hours left until sunrise, and we just wasted half of one on this sideshow.” When there were a few more frozen beats, she clapped her hands together, “Hustle, shitlords.”

After they finished up the night’s work, and there was nothing left but her personal tablet (as opposed to her work one, bless Stark’s generous, argyle-clad toes) and she was enjoying a thermos-fresh mug (A mug! An actual ceramic mug!) of coffee, conveniently the size of about two and a half regular cups painted with a pretty blue-and-green glaze and gold-leaf painted peacock on the white, beverage doctored with just enough sugar and marshmallows instead of cream, did anyone approach her. “Miss Lewis, I would like to cordially invite you to dinner at a location of your choosing, should you desire to accept the offer.” 

The voice was definitely Rogers. It wasn’t the Captain voice she’d heard him use in the training room (she kept up on her gymnastics when people weren’t as likely to watch, which usually meant avengers getting their fit on, too. It wasn’t his long-suffering voice; which anyone who has met Tony is familiar with the voice, because everyone has heard someone use it when the billionaire is being told no. It’s not his flirt-voice, which is terrible, and she doesn’t blame Romanoff or Rhodes or Wilson or Stark cackling about it. It’s also not his conversation voice.

His words had a lilt to them that reminds her of the warm-ups she’d heard some of the marching band kids use before games. It made her laugh. “I might enjoy that very polite and respectful request of my person. Should I indeed accept, I will magnanimously be of reasonable mind in my consideration for venues.” Well, if, from that utterly wild and bright grin, she’d guess he was being a troll, but Thor had said that the guy had been working himself up to asking her out sometime the week before. 

“And she is as generous and giving as she is beautiful. I would be honored if you would contact me with your decision, and germain details if it is of positive favor to me.” He offered her a neatly folded slip of paper, the contents no doubt his personal details written in the neat, tidy, almost delicate scroll of his handwriting. With a slight bow, he turned and went to help Jane with some last minute sortings-out of her van’s load of equipment. Darcy smiled, unfolded the slip as best as she could, one handed, and shook it out to finish loosening the sharp creases. 

And then promptly choked on her coffee, mid sip.

Under where his name and number was writ were the words ‘ _Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, you ever middle-name me that way, and I’ll be a pathetic, whimpering mess at your feet, glorious queen._ ’ And if that wasn’t an auspicious sign for what they would be together, she wasn’t sure what could be. He was definitely the best kind of troll. She put a corner of the note in her mouth to hold it, and tablet taken by Ian to be stashed on her seat, she dug her phone out on the way to her ride back to the compound. She held the slip behind her phone so that she could see the number as she added it to her contacts. 

Steve was about to get into Erik’s admittedly more people-filled van when she whistled, and pointed at the ground before her, “Front and center, Rogers.” The guard had already gotten a dressing down from his superior and two Avengers, so the bitter look he had as he got in while Steve obediently trotted over was as saccharine as cheap grocery-bakery cake icing to her. 

“Sorry if I came on to you, if you don’t actually want to go out I not only understand but endorse your ri-” He clamped his mouth shut and blushed when she tutted at him.

“Oh, there will be a date, and probably a movie or two on your couch after. Or during, honestly, I’m alright with pizza rolls and Lost Boys if you are.” The smile she got for that was so soft and sweet that she was a little melty. The warm coffee and the cold fall morning in upstate New York, and the approaching-48-hours-awake thing were all factors too. “So, I wanted to ask you to drive, because honestly I don’t trust any of us. Jane’s already asleep, Ian looks like he’s almost there, and I need to check on my inboxes before I get home and make some bleary notes for myself for when I answer things later.”

“I can absolutely do that for you guys. Also, one of the other lugheads recorded your spiel, and I might have had Natasha freeze his phone and steal the footage.” He smiled when she turned to tuck her back against his chest and held her phone up to take a picture of them. He made a silly face to match the one she was making, and then softly kissed the top of her head when her features softened to take a second. 

“Thanks for that. No offense, but I hope they all get cut. I grew up in a family of hunters and emergency responders. Who vetted those jack-boots?” She snorted and walked around to get the keys from where Ian was sat in a bucket seat of the old Pinz, quietly snoring, phone still in hand and open to his Instagram dash.

She sat the keys and her coffee down, tucked the man in properly to his seat, locked his phone, buckled him in, carefully shut the door just hard enough for it to properly latch. Then went around to the other side and repeated it with Jane. When she curled into the passenger side, She received her mug happily and with both hands.

Later, when she would wake, she would find a well-worn army sweatshirt neatly folded on the end of the bed and smelling like faint aftershave and wood smoke, the coffee mug in her cabinet, next to the other huge and handmade mugs that she collected, and her coffee maker already all set to go. She hadn’t gotten any of that work done on the ride back.

**Author's Note:**

> You can always find me [on tumblr](http://www.crownsandashes.tumblr.com/) or [on twitter](http://www.twitter.com/extransient). I take prompts!
> 
> A couple posts on tumblr that I have lost the links to started this and it went a little further than I meant it to. You're welcome?


End file.
